It’s ‘as if 100,000 service-sector jobs went missing,’ Rosenberg says

Reactions continue to flood in on Friday’s data showing a worse-than-forecast 113,000 jobs created in January.

David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist of Gluskin Sheff, says the weakness in the data came on the services side of the ledger — which doesn’t make sense to him when looking at both the ISM and ADP surveys. The employment component of the ISM services index was a strong 56.4% in January, and ADP said 160,000 private-sector services jobs were created during the month. “It’s as if 100K service sector jobs went missing in the payroll report,” he said.

(In the chart, the blue bar represents what the Labor Department says of private-sector services employment, and the red bar is ADP’s tally.)

He said the headline number “did not pass the proverbial sniff test,” and that the strong showing of the household survey is closer to the mark and more consistent with what actually is going on in the economy.